[ICMI-News] ICMI News 1: December 2007

ICMI News 1: December 2007
A Bimonthly Email Newsletter from the
ICMI-International Commission on Mathematical
Instruction
Editor: Jaime Carvalho e Silva, Dep. Matematica,
Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal
CONTENTS
1. A welcome from the President of ICMI
2. Some current highlights of ICMI
3. News about the 11th ICME-International Congress on Mathematical Education
4. ICMI Study 18 - Statistics Education in
School Mathematics: Challenges for Teaching and
Teacher Education
5. Calls for contributions
6. Help to shape the Research Agenda in Mathematics Education!
7. Meeting of the Executive Committee of ICMI: London, 13-16 June, 2007
8. Calendar of Events of Interest to the ICMI Community
9. Historical vignettes: Henri Fehr (1870-1954)
10. Subscribing to ICMI News
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1. A welcome from the President of ICMI
It is my pleasure as the ICMI President to
introduce this first issue of ICMI News. Its
creation
was decided at the first meeting of the current
ICMI Executive Committee, last June. Jaime
Carvalho e Silva accepted to become its Editor
and IMU kindly offered its logistic support,
making possible the publication of the first
issue by the end of this year. Thanks to all of
them
for their collaboration in the launching of this
new channel of communication between ICMI and
the community it serves.
What we know today as ICMI was initially a
Commission founded at the International Congress
of Mathematicians held in Rome in 1908 and Felix
Klein was its first President. Its first aim was
to compare the methods and plans of teaching
mathematics in different countries. This
initiative
met with a great success, and in 1920 the
Commission had already produced 310 reports. Its
mandate was regularly reconfirmed at the
International Congresses of Mathematicians, but
its
precise status as the sub-commission of IMU in
charge of educational issues was only fixed in
1954. Its missions have progressively enlarged
and today its ambition is to provide an
international
forum for the study and improvement of
mathematics education around the world, a space
for reflection,
exchange and collaboration, for the dissemination
of ideas and results, to all those professionally
concerned by mathematics education: teachers and
teacher educators, mathematicians, researchers
in mathematics education, curriculum developers, administrators, policy-makers.
Beyond the ICME Congresses organized every four
years (the next one will take place
for the first time in Latin America, in
Monterrey, next July), ICMI tries to achieve this
ambition
through different activities : ICMI Studies whose
final outcome is a book now published by
Springer, Regional Conferences, through the
support it offers to different projects thanks to
its
Solidarity Fund and collaboration with IMU,
UNESCO or other institutions, and last but not
least
through the activities of its five Affiliated Study Groups.
I hope that this Newsletter, which will appear
every two months in even-numbered months,
alternating with the IMU electronic newsletter
IMU-Net, will increase the visibility of ICMI
activities,
and will encourage all those who share our
ambitions and values to contribute to them and
join
the ICMI family.
Encourage all those you know interested in mathematics education to subscribe!
Michèle Artigue, President of ICMI, artigue at math.jussieu.fr
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2. Some current highlights of ICMI
It is my pleasure, in my capacity as
Secretary-General of ICMI, to welcome the readers
to this first issue of ICMI News, the electronic
newsletter of the International Commission
on Mathematical Instruction. It is the hope of
the ICMI Executive Committee that ICMI News
will become a widely known tool for efficient and
massive dissemination of information
about ICMI and its activities among mathematicians and mathematics educators.
In her welcome words above, President Michèle
Artigue has recalled the general aims of
ICMI and indicated the main activities organised
by the Commission or under its auspices.
I would like in this note to stress a few forthcoming activities of ICMI.
Mathematical exhibition "Experiencing mathematics"
http://www.mathex.org/MathExpo/
Three copies of this exhibition, sponsored by
ICMI jointly with UNESCO and other bodies
and officially launched at ICME-10 in July 2004,
are now in circulation. The next opening
will take place in Lisbon on December 16, on the
occasion of the conference on "The Future
of mathematics education in Europe" organized by
the Academia Europaea. This copy of the
exhibition will then travel for four months in
five other cities in Portugal. Another copy of
the
exhibition is currently in India and the third one, in South America.
ICMI Centennial Symposium
http://www.unige.ch/math/EnsMath/Rome2008/
The Italian communities of mathematicians and
mathematics educators will host a symposium
on March 5-8 to celebrate the centennial of ICMI.
The theme of this conference is "The First
Century of the International Commission on
Mathematical Instruction (1908-2008): Reflecting
and Shaping the World of Mathematics Education".
It will take place at the Accademia dei
Lincei, the birthplace of ICMI during the
International Congress of Mathematicians of 1908.
Participation is by invitation.
Chair of the International Programme Committee:
Ferdinando Arzarello
(ferdinando.arzarello at unito.it)
Chair of the Local Organising Committee: Marta
Menghini (marta.menghini at uniroma1.it).
A website about the history of ICMI is being
developed in connection with the Centennial
symposium, under the editorship of Fulvia Furinghetti and Livia Giacardi
(see http://www.icmihistory.unito.it)
ICMI Study 18
http://www.ugr.es/~icmi/iase_study/
Devoted to the theme "Statistics Education in
School Mathematics: Challenges for Teaching
and Teacher Education", the 18th Study of ICMI is
organised jointly by ICMI and the International
Association for Statistical Education (IASE).
See below for more information. The deadline for
submitting contributions is now passed. The
Study conference will be held in Monterrey from
June 30 to July 4, just prior to ICME-11.
ICME-11 and ICMI General Assembly
http://icme11.org/
The 11th International Congress on Mathematical
Education will be held in Monterrey, México,
on July 6-13, 2008. See below for more
information. The General Assembly of ICMI will
meet
on this occasion on July 6. For the first time,
the Executive Committee of the Commission
(to serve in 2010-2012) will be elected by the
ICMI General Assembly, instead of the IMU GA
as was the case up to now.
Bernard R. Hodgson, Secretary-General of ICMI, bhodgson at mat.ulaval.ca
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3. News about the 11th ICME-International Congress on Mathematical Education
ICME-11, Monterrey (Mexico), 2008
The11th edition of the International Congress on
Mathematics Education will take place in
Monterrey, Mexico, from July 6 to 13, 2008. The
2nd announcement has now appeared with
detailed information on the various activities,
including topics addressed, composition of the
organizing teams, lecturers, panelists and so on.
You may consult it and/or download it from
the ICME-11 website: http://icme11.org
In it you will find sections like "How to
contribute" and "How to submit proposals",
highlighting
the importance of a wide participation in IPC
programmed groups and in independently
organized workshops and sharing experiences
groups, as well as poster presentations.
Practical information on registration,
accommodations, venue, and tours are also
provided.
Keeping with an ICME tradition, 10% of
registration fees will be directed to a grants
fund for
participants from non-affluent countries. See the corresponding section.
Please keep the following dates in mind
Submitting Proposals up to January 20
Grants applications up to February 15
Changes to Proposals up to April 1
Early Registration before March 2
Regular Registration up to June 1
For more information contact the IPC Chair
(m.santillan at upn.mx) on program matters, and
the LOC Chair (casi at xanum.uam.mx), or the ICME Congress Secretariat
(icme11secretariat at smm.org.mx), on other matters.
You may also write to
ICME Congress Secretariat
Av. Cipreses s/n (Casa Tlalpan)
Km. 23.5 Carretera Federal México-Cuernavaca
San Andrés Totoltepec, Tlalpan
14400 México, D.F., Mexico
Tels. + 52-55-5849-6710 and +52-55-5849-67-19
Fax. +52-55-5849-6709
We earnestly invite you to peruse this 2nd
announcement, hoping you will share our
enthusiasm and join us in this most worthwhile
endeavor, participating and contributing
in the program activities before and during the Congress, and/or registering.
Marcela Santillan, Chair of the International
Programme Committee, m.santillan at upn.mx
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4. ICMI Study 18 - Statistics Education in School
Mathematics: Challenges for Teaching and Teacher
Education
Preparations for the Joint ICMI /IASE Study
Statistics Education in School Mathematics:
Challenges for Teaching and Teacher Education are
now well advanced. This Study is
jointly organised by ICMI and the International
Association for Statistical Education
(IASE, http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~iase/) and
combines the ICMI Study 18 and the
IASE 2008 Round Table Conference.
The Joint Study Conference will take place at the
Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios
Superiores. Monterrey, Mexico
(http://www.mty.itesm.mx/), from June 30 to July
4, 2008.
More than 80 papers from all around the world and
covering all aspects of the study topic
have now been received and submitted to a
refereeing process. In addition to paper
presentations and working group sessions, the
conference will feature an Opening Lecture
and three panel sessions on the following themes:
a) Fundamental ideas in statistics and
how they affect the training of teachers; b)
Interplay of probability and statistics in
teaching
and in training teachers; c) Technology in the
teaching of statistics: potentials and
challenges in preparing teachers.
Following the conference there will be a short
meeting of Latin-American statistics
educators (ELEE, ITESM, Monterrey, Mexico, July,
4-5. 2008) with the aim of exchanging
experiences and establishing projects for future collaboration.
More information is available from the Study
website (http://www.ugr.es/~icmi/iase_study/)
or from Carmen Batanero, batanero at ugr.es.
Carmen Batanero, Chair of the International
Programme Committee, batanero at ugr.es
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5. Calls for contributions
Two forthcoming activities of ICMI are currently
open to proposals of contributions from
members of the community.
-- ICME-11
http://icme11.org/
There are various ways of proposing a
contribution to the programme of ICME-11, for
instance
in connection with components of the programme
such as Topic Study Groups, Discussion Groups,
Workshops, Sharing Experiences Groups or Poster
Presentations. More information is available
from the ICME-11 website, where the Second
Announcement of the congress can be downloaded.
DEADLINES FOR SUBMISSION OF CONTRIBUTIONS are
varied from one activity to the other,
but are mainly BETWEEN MID-DECEMBER AND
MID-JANUARY. The congress is taking place
in Monterrey, México, on July 6-13, 2008. More
information is available by clicking on the
selected
activity on the congress website or by contacting
the chair of the International Programme
Committee, Marcela Santillan (m.santillan at upn.mx).
-- ICMI Study 19
The ICMI Executive Committee is launching a new
Study on the theme "Proof and proving in
mathematics education". The International
Programme Committee recently met and the
Discussion Document, making a call for
contributions to this Study, will be available
early
January 2008. The Study Conference will be held
in May 2009 in Taipei. The co-chairs of
the Study are Michael de Villiers
(profmd at mweb.co.za) and Gila Hanna
(ghanna at oise.utoronto.ca).
DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF CONTRIBUTIONS: June
30, 2008. Submission will be online
on the Study 19 website, whose url will be announced early 2008.
Bernard R. Hodgson, Secretary-General of ICMI, bhodgson at mat.ulaval.ca
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6. Help to shape the Research Agenda in Mathematics Education!
One of the plenary activities for ICME 11 will be
a panel presentation addressing the question of
whether research in mathematics education is
providing the information that teachers and policy
makers most need. The panel members are
mathematics education researchers from different
countries, who will respond to teachers' and
policy makers' questions submitted through this
website.
Whether or not you plan to attend ICME 11 - and
we hope you do - you can make an important
contribution by letting us know how research can help you.
To do this, we invite you to submit an important
question that you think should be answered by
research in mathematics education and also to
indicate whether research has helped you in the
past and, if so, how.
We need responses from all countries, all school
types and all levels of the school system
including
teachers, policy makers and curriculum developers.
This is your chance to play a part in shaping the
research agenda in mathematics education. To do
this, please go to the ICME 11 website
(http://icme11.org/) and click on the Plenary 2
Survey link.
It is important that you and your colleagues make
your views known and contribute to shaping the
direction of mathematics education research internationally.
A report will be made available through the
conference website of both the submissions and the
responses of the plenary panel.
David Clarke, Moderator, ICME-11 Plenary Activity PS 2, d.clarke at unimelb.edu.au
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7. Meeting of the Executive Committee of ICMI: London, 13-16 June, 2007
The First Meeting of ICMI 2007-09 Executive
The first meeting of the current ICMI Executive
Committee took place at the London Knowledge
Lab of the University of London from June 13 to
16, 2007. It was chaired by Michèle Artigue,
ICMI President. Also present were Bernard Hodgson
(Secretary-General), Jill Adler, Mariolina
Bartolini Bussi, Bill Barton, Hyman Bass, Jaime
Carvalho e Silva, Celia Hoyles, S. Kumaresan,
Frederick Leung, Alexei Semenov, members of the
Executive. László Lovász, President of IMU
and ex-officio member of the ICMI Executive, partially attended the meeting.
The meeting began with an exchange of views about
the missions of ICMI and the priorities
to be given to ICMI activities during the three
next years, this exchange being introduced by
a reflective analysis of ICMI actions during the
last decade by its Past President Hyman Bass.
It emerged from this discussion the necessity of
consolidating some important advances
reached in the last decade, such as the
substantial improvement of the relationships
between
ICMI and IMU, the reinforcement of ICMI regional
networks and activities especially in developing
countries, the increasing collaboration with
other bodies such as UNESCO and ICSU.
It was agreed that it was necessary to increase
the visibility and impact of ICMI activities, to
clarify
the function and value of ICMI Studies, and to
establish sound administrative and financial
foundations for ICMI. These topics and many
others were then extensively discussed and
many decisions taken. The creation of this
electronic newsletter was one of these.
The meeting also included an evening hosted by
The Royal Society. The next meeting of
the Executive Committee will take place in Rome
in March 2008, just before and after the
Symposium organized for commemorating the centennial of ICMI.
Bill Barton, Vice-President of ICMI, barton at math.auckland.ac.nz
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8. Calendar of Events of Interest to the ICMI Community
ATCM 2007 - The 12th Asian Technology Conference in Mathematics
Taipei, Taiwan, December 16-20, 2007
http://atcm.mathandtech.org/
The Future of Mathematics Education in Europe
Univ. Lisboa, Portugal, December 16-18, 2007
http://www.fmee2007.org
Mathematics and Technology in the Body of Education: the Gender Perspective
University of Thessaly, Volos, Greece, December 18-19, 2007
http://gmt.ece.uth.gr/
MES5 - 5th International Conference on Mathematics Education and Society
Albufeira, Portugal, February 16-21, 2008
http://www.mes5.learning.aau.dk/
Symposium on the Occasion of the 100th Anniversary of ICMI
Rome, Italy, March 5-8, 2008
http://www.unige.ch/math/EnsMath/Rome2008/
2008 Conference on Math Education and Social Justice
"Creating Balance in an Unjust World"
Long Island University, Brooklyn, NY, USA, April 4-6, 2008
http://www.radicalmath.org/conference
Future Curricular Trends in School Algebra and Geometry
Univ. Chicago, USA, May 2-4, 2008
http://www.mathcurriculumcenter.org/conferences.php
Joint ICMI /IASE Study Statistics Education in School Mathematics:
Challenges for Teaching and Teacher Education
ICMI Study and IASE Round Table Conference
ITESM, Monterrey, Mexico, June 30-July 4, 2008
http://www.ugr.es/~icmi/iase_study/
ICME 11 - Mexico 2008
11th International Congress on Mathematical Education
Monterrey, Mexico, July 6 - 13, 2008.
http://icme11.org/
HPM 2008: History and Pedagogy of Mathematics
The HPM Satellite Meeting of ICME 11,
National Mexican University, Mexico City (UNAM), Mexico, July 14-18, 2008
http://www.red-cimates.org.mx/HPM2008.htm
PME32 & PME-NA30 Mexico joint conference
Morelia, Mexico, July 17-21 2008.
http://www.pme32-na30.org.mx/annou.htm
PME33
Thessaloniki - Greece, July 19-24, 2009
PME34
Univ. Fed. Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, Brazil - July 2010
http://igpme.org/
10 Iranian Mathematics Education Conference (IMEC-10)
Yazd, Iran, August 12-15, 2008
Contact: a_rejali at cc.iut.ac.ir, soheila_azad at yahoo.comhttp://www.imec10yazd.com
TIME-2008: Technology and its Integration in Mathematics Education
Tshwane Univ. of Tech., Buffelspoort, South Africa, September 22-26, 2008
http://time.tut.ac.za/
"Models in Developing Mathematics Education"
The Mathematics Education into the 21st Century Project
Dresden, Saxony, Germany, September 11-17, 2009
<mailto:arogerson at inetia.pl>arogerson at inetia.pl
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9. Historical vignettes: Henri Fehr (1870-1954)
Henri Fehr was the first secretary general of ICMI-International Commission
on Mathematical Instruction and played a very
important role on the international
cooperation in mathematics education for more than 50 years.
He was born in Zurich, studied at the University of Geneva, at
the EPF of Zurich and at the Sorbonne (Paris); he got a PhD at the University
of Geneva on 1899 with the thesis "Application de la méthode vectorielle de
Grassmann à la géométrie infinitésimale"; this was published as a book in Paris
and the review made in the Bull. A.M.S. said "The presentation of the elements
of differential geometry given by M. Fehr is hardly to be excelled".
He was a Professor at the University of Geneva from 1900 to 1945 and he was
its rector from 1930 to 1932.
He founded in 1899, with Charles-Ange Laisant, the journal "L'enseignement
Mathématique"; he was the editor of this journal till 1952. The main goal was
to integrate "the world of teaching" in "the big
movement of scientific solidarity"
by creating "a sort of mutual and continuous correspondence between the men
that devote their life to to this noble mission:
the mathematical education of youth"
From 1905 to 1909 he was president of the Swiss Association of Mathematics
Teachers. In 1910 he was a founding member, with Rudolf Fueter and Marcel
Grossmann, of the Swiss Mathematical Society, of which he was the President
from 1913 to 1915. In 1928 he was a founding member of the well known journal
Commentarii Mathematici Helvetici now in its 83rd year of publication.
He was the secretary general of ICMI from the beginning in 1908 till 1952.
He was vice-president of IMU-International
Mathematical Union from 1924 to 1932 and he was
also vice-president of the ICM-International
Congress of Mathematicians of Toronto (1924)
and Bologna (1928). During the difficult times of
the world wars he was a key figure, giving the
needed impulse to maintain a good level of
international cooperation in mathematics
education.
The ICMI Executive Committee, in a session held in Geneva in his honor in 1955,
said that "he maintained till our days the flame
of enthusiasm for mathematics teaching
and the conscience of the need to tighten the
relations between research and teaching".
References:
D. Coray et al. (ed.), "One hundred years of l'enseignement mathématique",
L'Enseignement Mathématique, Genève, 2003.
J. Ruffet, "Henri Fehr", Elemente der Mathematik, 10, 1955, 1-4.
E. B. Wilson, "Application de la méthode vectorielle de Grassmann à la
géométrie infinitésimale", Bull. AMS, Feb. 1901, 231-233.
Jaime Carvalho e Silva, jaimecs at mat.uc.pt
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10. SUBSCRIBING TO ICMI News
There are two ways of subscribing to ICMI News:
1. Click on http://www.mathunion.org/ICMI/Mailinglist with a Web browser
and go to the "Subscribe" button to subscribe to ICMI News online.
2. Send an e-mail to icmi-news-request at mathunion.org with the Subject-line:
Subject: subscribe
In both cases you will get an e-mail to confirm your subscription so
that misuse will be minimized. ICMI will not use the list of ICMI News
addresses for any purpose other than sending ICMI News, and will not
make it available to others.
Previous issues can be seen at:
http://www.mathunion.org/pipermail/icmi-news
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